AS MESSAGES go, it could not have been clearer: ‘We will avoid recession. A lot of people in Guernsey will breathe a huge sigh of relief.’

The reason for the chief minister’s ebullience was twofold: confirmation that the island’s growth last year was as much as 3% and that eight separate economic indicators suggest that growth this year will be in excess of one percent.

Given the negative figures anticipated by the UK and elsewhere, that is a remarkable figure and one that the Policy Council attributes to the resilience of the local economy and the success of an early adoption of zero-10.

That, combined with Guernsey achieving OECD white list status, should leave this community well set to ride the current difficult conditions although, as we report elsewhere today, the effects of the credit crunch are having a material effect on the financial services sector here.

Nevertheless, the upbeat comments from the chief minister, at the launch of the States Strategic Fiscal and Economic Plan, will be welcomed, especially in the light of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research reporting that the recession may be at a turning point in the UK.

If it is safe to start looking ahead – and those businesses involved in Guernsey’s purely domestic economy have yet to see any signs that it is – the plan contains some encouraging messages as well.

One of its central themes is that the States has to match expenditure to income and that sustainable economic growth is the key to the island’s on-going prosperity.

The driver of that growth remains the private sector and the plan, which States members will be asked to endorse, recognises that the role of government is to provide the climate in which the private sector can flourish.

The report also makes clear, however, that the future of business lies in higher value production and, although the wording is not as precise as this, that the days of lower value operations are ultimately numbered.

That might ultimately be good for Guernsey but the future is not uniformly bright for all businesses.